Empowered Communities

Group photo of emerging leaders inside an office space

Group photo: NPY Emerging Leaders, First Nations public servants and NIAA graduates met on Ngunnawal Country for a leadership event.

Service and connection to community were at the heart of conversations when young Aṉangu leaders from the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Lands met with First Nations leaders in the public service on Ngunnawal Country, Canberra.

Selwyn Burton is an emerging leader from Amata in South Australia. He valued seeing like-minded people at the event, hearing their stories and how they came to be in leadership roles.

“It makes me want to push myself also to maybe get into roles like this. It’s pretty privileged to be out here learning from many people from around the country, learning from their stories.”

He and the other young leaders were in Canberra as part of the NPY Emerging Leaders program, an initiative of Tristate Empowered Communities. At a breakfast hosted by the National Indigenous Australians Agency, they heard from senior First Nations public servants about their different journeys of leadership. The Emerging Leaders also shared their perspectives on leadership in their communities, families and workplaces.

“It gives you a sense of hope,” added Dharma Ducasse, from Indulkana in South Australia, “especially with the openness of everyone speaking about their journeys and being open about the struggles as well.”

Since 2018, the NPY Emerging Leaders Program has helped build pathways for Aṉangu aged 25-40 years into leadership and governance roles in communities, councils and organisations in the NPY region and beyond. The program is a successful example of how Empowered Communities enables community-led succession planning and personal development, nurturing the next generation of First Nations leaders.

Dharma, who at 24 years old has been elected to the South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament, shared how the program has empowered her as a young leader. “Being empowered means you have ambition. It means you’ve got ideas, it means you want to do better for yourself and that is the whole point about being part of the Emerging Leaders. It helps you to be empowered, it gives you drive.”

NIAA is proud to partner with Tristate Empowered Communities to support their work, including the NPY Emerging Leaders Program. Tristate Empowered Communities supports First Nations peoples in their region to put forward their priorities and aspirations to governments, and fostering emerging community leaders is a key part of this work. NIAA’s partnership with Tristate Empowered Communities and 9 other regions around Australia is driving on the ground reforms focused on Closing the Gap, regional development planning, fostering emerging leaders and improving the productivity of investment.

For more information about the NPY Emerging Leaders Program or Tristate Empowered Communities, visit https://www.npyec.org.au/.